


Seeing Ghosts

by a_salty_alto



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Hallucinations, M/M, Mourning, canonical not really character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:04:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_salty_alto/pseuds/a_salty_alto
Summary: Steve and Tony start to see things after they get seperated





	Seeing Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this instead of any of my other WIPs

It’s about two weeks after escaping Dimension Z and imprisoning Loki that Steve sees him for the first time. Tony.

“Just giving up on me Cap?” Tony asks. It isn’t accusatory, it’s resigned. Tony has that same soft smile of self-deprecation that Steve hates. 

Steve scares Kamala by begging forgiveness from an empty kitchen.

After that, Tony keeps popping up in places Steve can’t help but expect him in. It’s the one good thing about the compound feeling so cold and impersonal, it’s not Steve’s home, so he doesn’t imagine Tony there everytime he walks through the halls.

Instead he sees Tony in his room. A mockery of that warm presence that should be there. Tony just smiles at him, whispers words of comfort Steve can’t hear, probably because his mind can’t fill in what should go there.

And the worst part of it is that it feels more real than the truth. Tony was always Steve’s guide, a star shining through the darkness that lead Steve to a new team, a new purpose, a new family. It feels wrong that he’d just sputter out like this. 

He was Tony Stark. He should have gone out with a bang.

Most nights Steve can bring himself to sleep at all, an illusionary hand is stroking his head and Steve cries and asks no one to hold him.

* * *

 

Tony doesn’t know how long he’s been on Battleworld, or even away from Earth, the first time he sees Steve. 

He’s avoiding sensors and aliens in an abandoned city overrun by symbiotes, and sees Steve at the end of a sidewalk. Tony chases after  him, only to find himself very lost. 

He’s only just managed to avoid getting spotted by the time he makes his way back to his supplies.

On his way back, he spots a red truck in mostly good condition.

Tony knows cars inside and out, and focuses in that instead of the blue figure in the corner of his vision.

Tony sees Steve again while trying to sneak his truck, or Marsha as he’s started calling her, throughout the Vampire Federation. He tries to ignore it, but all he can think about as he, as quietly as possible, drives through the monster infested hellscape is that Steve’s neck is awfully exposed in his current uniform. Steve'd be in trouble if vampires attacked.

Once he’s clear, Tony takes some of the supplies he’s been saving for a new armor and starts making something new for Steve.

Tony sees the others too. He catches a glimpse of Natasha while navigating Weirdworld, spots Clint on a ship along the Vibranium Coast, sees Sam in the shadows of the United Federation of Crime, hears Hulk roar amongst the dinosaurs of Westland, and Thor’s lightning keeps him awake when he’s camping out in the jungles near Kun Lun.

But Steve always comes back. Is always there. He never says anything, none of them do. They just taunt Tony by remaining just outside his reach.

Tony tries to ignore them. He builds as a distraction. And if he ends up carrying more gear for his team than he does for himself, then that’s just as well.

* * *

 

Then the pyramid, and the hug, and they can both touch each other, and they know that there aren’t any ghosts here anymore. This is real.

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [Tumblr](a-salty-alto.tumblr.com)!


End file.
